


maybe

by larvitar



Series: summer depression [3]
Category: The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily M. Danforth
Genre: F/F, gay people are now real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larvitar/pseuds/larvitar
Summary: Coley navigates a post-Cameron world as she tries to come to terms with herself.☆★☆cameron x coley, one-shot w prequels/sequels, mostly angst w good ending, POV of coley
Relationships: Cameron Post/Coley Taylor
Series: summer depression [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535297
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	maybe

**Author's Note:**

> this is the sequel to will she come back, and the prequel to say anything, but from coley’s POV. both are recommended reading before reading this, but it won’t hurt you if you don’t. but you should. title from the girl in red song, obviously. (https://youtu.be/XmWyEbqNP2U) comments and kudos most always appreciated.

The day before Coley Taylor turns 18, she breaks up with Brett Eaton.

It’s inevitable. Coley loves him, she really does, but she’s not all too terribly  _ in  _ love with him. The first time they had sex (a week after Cameron Post leaves for God’s Promise, she should add), he’s nervous and stumbling and insecure and it kind of hurts. It’s nothing compared to the sex she had with Cameron, but then Coley reminds herself it can’t really compare. Nothing can compare to her.

He takes it well. He’s not angry, or upset, and even tells Coley he thinks it’s a good idea since he’s going to Oregon to play soccer and she’ll just be going to Montana State in Bozeman. They hug, and Coley feels as if a bit of the weight has been lifted off her shoulders. She’s wanted to break up with him for awhile, but after the whole fiasco before their sophomore year, she needed his protection more than anything. (She’d later learn that Brett was what people would call a  _ beard _ .)

The summer before she goes to college, she visits Scanlan at night. Always before the highway guys would come and visit, but always after dinner.

Coley doesn’t swim so much in that time. She doesn’t really want to, anyway. She just kind of sits there, idly, and splashes her feet, just a little. Every once in awhile though, she musters up the courage to just say fuck it all and plunge straight underwater. Times like those are the best, maneuvering through the floating bodies like they were old dad shirts at a thrift store. She goes to the end, and then back, and to the end and back again and pops up until she can’t take it. It’s almost a game— like one day, she’ll stay underwater for just a millisecond too long and she’ll sink like a rock to the bottom. There won’t be a struggle, Coley thinks. She’ll sink, willingly, voluntarily.

Coley catches Mona Harris looking at her every so often too. Not a look that she was used to, never a  _ that poor girl  _ look or  _ what a filthy sinner  _ look, it was something more soft. More genuine. She usually feels it when she pops up from one of her games, something that feels like a worried glance trying to comfort her using only the eyes. Once after Coley catches this happening again, a small part of her mind tells her that the way Mona is looking at her reminds her of how Cam used to look at her. Without another thought, Coley goes back underwater.

Thoughts about Cameron are like those cheap sticky hands that came in tiny capsules from the grocery store, Coley thinks. They’re thrown haphazardly at her mind whenever convenient, but sometimes, just sometimes, they stick. They stick and live in her brain rent-free and Coley almost wishes she could cry and forget it all.

(But she doesn’t.)

She especially doesn’t on the day that Mona comes up to her after she exits out of the locker room. That soft look, still. God.

“Coley Taylor, right?”

Coley blinks. “Yes. Why?”

Thankfully, this doesn’t come out aggressive. It only comes out as inquisitive, and Coley thanks her lucky stars for that.

“Mona Harris.” She shrugs half-heartedly, the hint of a smile on her face. “You probably already know that, though.”

“I’ve heard good things.”

Mona laughs, kind of awkwardly. “I’d hope so. You’re going to Montana State next year, right?”

“Yeah.”

Mona smiles easily at her. “You’ll like it there, I think.”

Coley suddenly feels so awkward, so adolescent. She’s barely 18. She turned 18 on the edge of the semester, one of the haphazard days after graduation filled with celebration and her mother taking off work and having a joint birthday-graduation party with everyone she’s kind of but not really friends with from Custer. Ty laughs and ruffles her hair and tells her he has to be “extra careful” now that she’s legal and she laughs. But it feels wrong. She still doesn’t know who she is. She’s still the same confused kid sprawled on that offwhite mattress. She’s still a kid, and the way Mona is talking to her right now makes her feel even more so. A kid walking around in a teenage skin.

“Are you okay?”

Coley blinks, snapping herself out of her trance. Mona is staring concerningly at her. Her face flushes and she looks down at her bare feet before answering.

“Yeah, sorry. I just got a little…”

Mona laughs. “Caught up? Don’t worry, it happens to me all the time. But for what it’s worth…”

She walks past Coley then, going into the locker room to do any manner of gross, menial labor.

“...It’s going to be good for you there.”

☆★☆

Mona is right. Montana State is nice, Coley thinks. It’s four hours away from Miles City, which is enough to keep her distance from the city and everyone there but enough for her to be able to come home over winter and summer break without it being too much of a hassle for her mom or Ty or anything.

Her first week there, she kind of wanders somewhat aimlessly— but she turns on the Coley charm and suddenly people want to be friends with her and want to invite her to parties. More often than not, she goes.

Bozeman is different from Miles City in that it feels more  _ open _ . For all she knew, Cam and her were the only kids, no, only people, in Miles City to not be straight. Chances are, there were other people like them who hid in shadows of shame and fear, but Coley wouldn’t know. When you live somewhere like that, hiding is the only way to survive.

Bozeman, on the other hand, is filled with people who can express themselves like nobody’s business. Piercings, dyed hair in all shades of the rainbow, tattoos, hair so short her mom would frown, and the like. Coley didn’t know how much could change just a couple hours away, but here she is.

She falls in with a friend group rather easily, them all being a good mix of people- a handful of liberal arts majors, mostly, with a sprinkling of STEM majors and even one girl who's an agriculture major, like her. There’s a lot of agriculture majors here, obviously, but the group she falls in with seems to be less kids from small towns like her and more so kids from Bozeman and Billings and big cities in surrounding states.

She really clicks with Dorothy, though. The aforementioned agriculture major. She’s from a ranch from a small town in Wyoming, and she seems to understand Coley, at least. It’s refreshing to have someone from a similar hellhole as Miles City.

They’re drinking together one day, sitting in the back of Dorothy’s truck on a cool September night. Coley gets hit with a sense of déjà vu, so intense that it threatens to consume her. She puts down her drink, trying to focus on the next words she has to force out of her mouth.

“Do you like that Bozeman’s so…”

Dorothy half-smiles at her, perching her foot on the edge of the trunk, taking a sip of some cheap beer Coley couldn’t really care less about.

“So what?”

Dorothy turns to her then, her brown eyes piercing into Coley’s. The déjà vu has morphed into something else. Something more like desire. Still, more than ever, all-consuming.

“...so… open?”

Dorothy’s breath is hot on her mouth now. She bites her lip, and Coley shakes.

“Yeah,” Dorothy responds. Coley’s breath hitches. “‘Cause if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

And Dorothy kisses her. It’s fervent, beautiful, and once again, always, all-consuming. Coley feels like she’s being eaten from the inside as Dorothy grabs her face and slips her tongue in her mouth.

_ This can’t be happening. You can’t. God, they’d kill you if they found out. This is fucked. You’re so fucked, Coley. _

Coley dismisses her pervasive thoughts, and kisses Dorothy harder.

_ It can’t be wrong. It can’t be. Not if it feels like this. It always feels like this. _

☆★☆

Dorothy and her start going steady after that, the night in the back of her trunk. All of their friend group was happy for them, and it felt weird. It felt strange, really, to be able for people to know. For people to know the joy she feels. Intense. All-consuming.

Coley goes home for Christmas, mostly to help with the ranch, but also to see her mom and Ty. They ask her about college, who she’s friends with, and so on. Coley tells them about Dorothy, and how she’s also working at her family’s ranch for break. How similar they are.

Her mom smiles, cutting into her chicken-fried steak. “I’m glad you’ve found someone like you,” she says, and Coley smiles a little herself for the first time in a while. Because yes, Dorothy’s just like her. More than her mom knows. More than she could ever know.

☆★☆

Winter semester flows by quicker than Coley can anticipate. Full of Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy. For summer, too, she invites Coley to her family’s ranch for about a month or so. She asks her mom if she can go and her mom gives her a happy  _ yes  _ and tells her  _ as long as you’re here to help the rest of the time _ . Coley tells her  _ of course, mom _ and her heart feels full.

The ranch is a dream. Like hers but also so much better. Dorothy’s father is a gentle man with a broom for a mustache and her two rambunctious little brothers are spitting images of her father (minus the facial hair, of course). Coley decides she likes it quite a lot. 

They sleep in her childhood room, and more often than not Coley ends up sleeping with Dorothy, literally and figuratively. They giggle and explore each other’s bodies with the only light being a dull lamp from her bedside. Dorothy kisses her and caresses her and makes her feel, makes her feel, makes her feel. Coley relishes in the sweet warmth Dorothy gives her, to the fluttering kisses she presses on Coley’s neck, to the tender gestures. Coley loves all of it, to just have it be only her and her family and her ranch. Her world, and now Coley is fully ingrained within all of it.

Paradise ends sooner than later, unfortunately. Dorothy and her are engaging in an early morning encounter, so-to-speak, and her father enters. Caught. Guilty. Shame blossomed down her neck in shades of pink as Dorothy’s father quietly closed the door. Coley shook, once again. 

“...Is it going to be okay?” Coley whispered, grabbing Dorothy’s hand forcefully. Still shaking. The earthquake that made Quake Lake.

Dorothy was visibly nervous, perhaps even more so, just tightly concealed. She squeezed Coley’s hand back tight.

“...I don’t know.”

☆★☆

That night, after an incredibly tense and silent dinner, as Dorothy was taking a shower and Coley reading (but not really) something mindless on the air mattress, Dorothy’s father came in, his normal slight grin now a straight line.

“You have to leave.” His gruff voice made her blood run cold. “Pack up your things. We leave in fifteen.”

Coley blinks. She probably won’t get to say goodbye to Dorothy.  _ On purpose, _ she thinks. She packs her things, hurriedly and haphazardly, and is almost ready to go before she decides she ought to write something to her. An explanation, at least. She rifles through drawers until she comes upon a used notepad and a pen that has seen much better days. She rips open a piece from it, scrawling her words to Dorothy on the small dresser near her bed.

_ Dorothy, _

_ I’m sorry. I should’ve known better. _

_ Coley Taylor _

Coley hates writing her full name, but she hates writing the six words before it even more. Again. Chills went down her back. History always repeats itself.

She puts the note under Dorothy’s pillow, grabs her stuff, and goes outside to where Dorothy’s dad is waiting.

“Put your stuff in the back, and we can head out.”

She does as is told, when, of course, the youngest brother, Nick, comes outside. He’s a scrappy little kid, just on the edge of nine, nearly ten, and is just about the nosiest kid she’s ever met, for better or for worse. In this case, certainly worse.

“Pops? Where’s Coley goin’? I thought she was stayin’ on the ranch for awhile.” He looks at her, quizzically.

His father doesn’t answer, instead getting in his truck. He nods to Coley, and she puts herself in the front seat.

“I just gotta leave. Sorry, kid.” She ruffles the boy’s hair before closing the passenger door and buckling up, but he still isn’t satisfied.

“That still doesn’t make sense,” Nick says, huffing. His dad starts the engine, glaring at Coley, making her slink back in her seat before he utters his next words.

“Most things don’t, son. Even the things in plain sight.”

☆★☆

The drive to Miles City is silent. The only conversation her and Dorothy’s father has comes in the middle of the trip, and it nearly makes Coley jump out of her seat when she hears it.

“I always suspected Dorothy would. But I thought you were a better kid than that, Taylor.” He straightens up in his seat, as Coley grows more uncomfortable by the second.

“That’s what they said, too.”

He looks at her, seemingly able to read her expression and fill in the gaps, as he turns back to the open road.

“Some people never learn. You can’t do much about that.”

☆★☆

Her mother is overjoyed to have her back early, and so is Coley, honestly. Ty isn’t home when she gets home, most likely fucking around with his buddies. Cow tipping, still, maybe. It’s in him to be so juvenile. Coley figures he’ll be back an hour or two before sunset, but who was she to say, anyway.

Her mom doesn’t ask what happened, and Coley would rather keep it that way. She doesn’t really do much that summer, keeping herself busy with work at the ranch. She toils in the hot sun, making herself forget about the liquid heat that pools in her stomach via another source of heat. She’d rather not think about that liquid heat. She sure doesn’t do anything about it either, letting it sit there for it to quietly fester in her less-than-PG dreams. Coley thinks, perhaps, that’s the only safe place to keep them.

It’s soon enough until she goes back to college, and Ty and her mom drive the truck up to Bozeman and her mom cries just as much as she did last year. She hugs her mom and Ty just as tight as she did last year, too.

Coley quickly phases out of her freshman year friend group. Mostly because she doesn’t think Dorothy wants to talk to her anymore, and Coley felt the same. After what happened, especially so soon, it’d just be… well, less than ideal.

She decides to go out on a limb and attend the gay social group that, while not campus-sponsored, certainly not, was held by MSU students in the Renne library’s basement.

The people she meets there are cool.  _ Really  _ cool, actually. None of them really from rural areas, necessarily, more so cities and suburban areas. They go around in a circle and do the classic  _ name, major, and fun fact _ . As stupid as it is, Coley puts up with it.

“I’m Coley Taylor,” she says, fidgeting with her fingers, “and I’m an agriculture major. One fun fact about me, is, uh, my family owns a ranch.”

A few girls, from the same clique, it seems, whoop. One girl, with a lot of piercings and chains to boot, adds on. “Farmer dyke? That’s killer.” One of the girls next to her, her head shaved and a button-up tucked into her jeans, also adds on. “For sure. It’s also pretty badass you’re here, if you came from such a one-horse town.”

Coley smiles, blushing a bit, fidgeting less but still a little. That’s the first time she’s heard that word being used in a non-antagonistic way. She briefly remembers hearing whispers her sophomore year with that word, and shakes her head off the memory. “It’s certainly not easy,” she replies, laughing a bit.

The leader of their humble basement group, made obvious by her starting the meeting and going over the agenda, comments, nodding to shaved head girl. “Kara’s right. You have balls Coley, and for what it’s worth…” She smiles sweetly at Coley, and Coley forgets herself for a second. “I think you’ll really like it here.”

☆★☆

The leader of their basement gay social club, whose name she finds out to be Kyung-Hu, (who adamantly insisted it’s fine for Coley to call her Ky, because the rest of the group does), Coley likes quite a bit. Not like  _ that,  _ though. Her heart still ached from the heartbreak of the past summer. A life, repeated. Coley sighed to herself thinking of that, always.

Ky’s family lived in Seattle, her parents immigrating there from South Korea while she was still in the womb. What this meant for Ky and Coley and the rest of the group was that her exceptionally chill parents let them hang out at their apartment over any sort of break. They didn’t have people over to Ky’s, no, definitely not, but they certainly went out a lot. Coley, as it seemed, really liked the band of them. Maybe, perhaps, she’d found her people.

This culminated in the group of them all heading down to Seattle the weekend before Thanksgiving break actually started. Ky’s parents were away, and they all had to take advantage of their time while they had it. Their parents would want them for Thanksgiving, most likely, but for now, they could have their fun. 

Said “fun” in question was going to Ky’s ex’s former hookup’s party. Kara laughed at that, at first, lounging on Ky’s couch, smoking a blunt they were leisurely passing around.

“I hate that all lesbians are connected somehow. I hate it so fucking much,” She commented, cackling. Monika, the girl with ample piercings and chains, shrugged and took the blunt from Kara. “ _ C’est la vie, bébé.” _ Coley grinned, taking a brief hit of the blunt, before Ky took it from her, taking an equally brief hit before putting it out by smothering it with her boot on the porch.

“Shall we go, ladies?”

☆★☆

They arrive at the party somewhat late, the door ajar enough for them to enter somewhat silently. Thank God, because Coley wanted nothing less than to interact with whatever brand of gay oddity that a said ex’s former hookup would be exuding.

Her friends quickly diverge, with Ky coming up to her before heading wherever she’s heading. “Going to find my ex.” She laughs to herself. “See what she’s up to.” Ky pats her on the back. “Are you okay?”

Coley blinks, looking up at Ky. “Yeah. It’s all good. I might get a beer soon.”

Ky smiles at her. “Take care, farmer dyke.” Coley smiles back, and watches Ky vanish into the crowd.

She ends up swiping a beer from Kara, who insists she’s “too zonked to drink”. Coley takes the drink, taking tentative sips at it, as she attempts to relax within the thick of the sweaty, drug-infused party.

And then.

The blonde hair she could never miss. She’s right  _ there,  _ right  _ here,  _ right  _ now.  _ Coley’s breath catches, as they lock eye contact. The other girl looks at her just confusedly more than anything else.  _ Had it been that long? _

Coley has to make the first move. This is her mess she made, and hers to fix. One foot in front of the other, and she’s right there.

Right in front of her.

What had it been, four, five, years?

Coley couldn’t remember. The only thing she could do was speak. Confirm the illusion.

“Cameron Post?”

☆★☆

**Author's Note:**

> gay people? real?!? yes, mayhaps. i might make another sequel to this or i might not. who knows! very glad to be publishing this tho tbh because i’ve felt very burnt out and unable to publish during college. but we got this so! god bless. also hope you all have started reading plain bad heroines, i have already and it’s SO good. n e wayz ty for reading! comments & kudos are always welcomed!!! have a beautiful day!!!!!  
> ☆★☆  
> torture me on tumblr  
> krookodyke.tumblr.com


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